The present invention relates generally to the field of medicine and particularly to the field of of pathology. Pathologists are the physicians responsible for analyzing tissue and liquid specimens by light microscopy. For example, tissue specimens removed at surgery are examined under the microscope by the pathologist who thereafter renders an opinion of the diagnosis. The patients' physician thereafter makes therapeutic decisions based upon the pathologists' diagnosis.
Under current practice, specimens removed from a patient must be delivered to the pathologist who is to examine them. Under the best of circumstances, the examining pathologist works in a laboratory located at the hospital where the patient is. In such a case, the turnaround time can be short enough to allow the pathology diagnostic opinion to be rendered and the opinion to be acted upon during the same operation in which the specimen is removed from the patient. Naturally, being able to make and act on the pathology diagnostic opinion during a single operation is highly desirable.
Alternatively, when the pathologist is not located at the same hospital, the specimens can be sent through the mails or other means to a pathologist working at a diagnostic center at a distant location. This situation precludes removing the specimen and acting on the pathology diagnostic opinion during a single surgical procedure. This result not only adds to the cost of the treatment, but can also lead to adverse health effects inherent in delaying the therapeutic treatment and by subjecting the patient to multiple surgical procedures.
A significant trend in the field of medicine generally and the field of pathology specifically is that of subspecialization. That is, it is more and more common for individual pathologists to develop high levels of expertise in diagnosing the diseases occurring in a single organ system, such as liver or lung. Unfortunately however, most hospitals do not have a sufficient number of patients with diseases in specific organs to justify retaining subspecialty pathologists on a full-time basis. Thus, to obtain opinions from subspecialty pathologists it is required to send the specimens to the facility at which they are located.
A similar problem has been faced in the field of radiology, that is inefficiencies and health-threatening delays resulting from a maldistribution of radiologists and radiology subspecialists. The advent of teleradiology has, to some extent, provided a solution to this problem. Teleradiology is the term used to refer to the practice of establishing networks for telecommunicating the roentgenogram images from the site at which they are produced to the site of a consulting radiologist. Naturally, such a system can be used to eliminate critical delays in providing radiology diagnostic opinions.
Unfortunately, such networking has not been hitherto available in the field of pathology due to critical differences between the way radiology and pathology are practiced. The most prominent difference is the fact that radiologists deal primarily with static black and white images, i.e. roentgenograms which represent large areas of the body. The information content of a single image is thus relatively low. Accordingly, the entire image can be digitized and telecommunicated at an acceptable speed with existing technology.
In contrast, pathologists work with three dimensional samples which need to be viewed in full color by panoramic scanning. In making a diagnosis, the pathologist must be able to view different parts of the sample at different magnifications, at different intensities of illumination, and in full color. The pathologist must also be able to focus up and down through the specimen to view it at different depths. As a result, a network which simply digitizes and transmits static images would not allow a pathologist to render diagnostic opinions in an optimal fashion.